In the last decade, grave violations of human rights have occurred during states of emergency such as armed conflict, subversion, and terrorism. Many sovereign states are notorious for using a state of emergency as an excuse for breaching human rights, and one of the most important problems in the international protection of human rights is that of identifying the standards governing these rights. This volume examines human rights in the context of treaty law and general international law. It analyzes the rules, principles, and obligations which international law has developed to cope with these situations.
This study demonstrates the extensive protection that international law provides to human rights even in the most serious of emergencies when they are particularly vulnerable. Based on a meticulous analysis of preparatory works and practice under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the American and European Conventions on Human Rights, and with a special chapter on the International Labour Organisation's approach to international labour standards and emergencies, this book shows that respect for the rule of law and the concept of a democratic society are controlling parameters in any valid limitation on the enjoyment of human rights. It further shows that respect for human rights and the operation of institutions such as the Legislature and Judiciary are crucial to enabling societies to address and eventually remedy the root causes of emergency situations. The study recommends possible directions for the development of case law and suggests some practical means to help ensure that international legal requirements are in fact respected in emergencies.
This volume is the most comprehensive and up-to-date compilation of in-depth analyses on human rights violations committed in war. It offers myriad perspectives on the content and application of legal protections offered to civilians, including women, children and the elderly, and to others who are ‘no longer active in the fight.’ A series of carefully researched case studies illustrates the extent to which human rights violations occur in recent and current armed conflict, and signals the ways in which these violations are dealt with. Each of the contributing authors has been selected on the basis of their international academic reputation and/or professional standing within the human rights field. Given the alarming numbers of people harmed in recent and current armed conflict, this book will be of great interest to researchers, policymakers and opinion-shapers alike.
Recent events in South America, central Europe, Africa, and Russia have again brought to the world's attention the complex interrelationship between states of emergency and the preservation of fundamental human rights. In Human Rights in Crisis, Joan Fitzpatrick offers the first systematic and comprehensive effort to examine the multifaceted system for monitoring human rights abuses under "states of exception." Unlike previous studies, this book does not focus on substantive norms governing crises, but rather on how those norms might best be implemented. Building upon her six-year study for the International Law Association, the author confronts the difficulties in defining a coherent concept of emergency, particularly the various forms of de facto emergencies that have been relatively neglected by international monitors. She also profiles and carefully critiques the numerous international bodies that have monitored human rights abuses during states of exception. These bodies include not only the treaty organs of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the Organization of American States but also the political organs of the United Nations (especially the Commission on Human Rights), the International Labor Organization, and the emerging structures of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The new form of "humanitarian government" emerging from natural disasters and military occupations that reduces people to mere lives to be rescued. From natural disaster areas to zones of political conflict around the world, a new logic of intervention combines military action and humanitarian aid, conflates moral imperatives and political arguments, and confuses the concepts of legitimacy and legality. The mandate to protect human lives--however and wherever endangered--has given rise to a new form of humanitarian government that moves from one crisis to the next, applying the same battery of technical expertise (from military logistics to epidemiological risk management to the latest social scientific tools for "good governance") and reducing people with particular histories and hopes to mere lives to be rescued. This book explores these contemporary states of emergency. Drawing on the critical insights of anthropologists, legal scholars, political scientists, and practitioners from the field, Contemporary States of Emergency examines historical antecedents as well as the moral, juridical, ideological, and economic conditions that have made military and humanitarian interventions common today. It addresses the practical process of intervention in global situations on five continents, describing both differences and similarities, and examines the moral and political consequences of these generalized states of emergency and the new form of government associated with them.
Emergencies are ubiquitous in 21st-century societal discourses. From the rise of emergency pronouncements in the United States since 9/11 accompanied by the associated violations of fundamental rights, through talks of ‘crises’ in the EU in relation to the economy, Putin’s occupation of Crimea (as recently amplified by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine) or refugees, to the long-neglected looming climate catastrophe, emergency discourses have been catapulted to the centre of attention by the critical juncture of the COVID-19 pandemic. This volume presents and compares the existing regulations and practices of emergencies and human rights protection in the Visegrad (V4) countries. As such, the analysis covers Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Although these European countries share a common historical experience and are now members of the EU and NATO, they differ in some of their constitutional traditions and, also, in the dynamics of their political regimes. Divided into three parts, the first two comprehensively discuss the constitutional models of emergency and human rights protection in each of the V4 countries, while the third part illustrates how these models and the general framework of rights protection materialised in the limitations of the selected human rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. The volume provides a compass for more in-depth, comparative, and interdisciplinary inquiries into the forms and practices of emergencies in one of the EU regions that faces illiberalisation and the consequences of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on its eastern borders. It will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and policymakers working in the areas of Constitutional Law and Politics.
The terrorist attacks occurred in the United States on 11 September 2001 have profoundly altered and reshaped the priorities of criminal justice systems around the world. Atrocities like the 9/11 attacks, the Madrid train bombings of March 2003, and the terrorist act to the United Kingdom of July 2005 threatened the life of democratic nations. The volume explores the response of democratic nation-states to the problems of terrorism and counter-terrorism within the framework of the Rule of Law. One of the primary subjects of study is the ways in which the interests of the state (security from external threats, the maintenance of civil peace, and the promotion of the commonwealth) are balanced or not with the liberty and freedom of the citizens of the state. The distinctive aspect of this focus is that it brings a historical, political, philosophical and comparative approach to the contemporary shape and purposes of the criminal justice systems around the world.
Permanent States of Emergency and the Rule of Law explores the impact that oxymoronic 'permanent' states of emergency have on the validity and effectiveness of constitutional norms and, ultimately, constituent power. It challenges the idea that many constitutional orders are facing permanent states of emergency due to the 'objective nature' of threats facing modern states today, arguing instead that the nature of a threat depends upon the subjective assessment of the decision-maker. In light of this, it further argues that robust judicial scrutiny and review of these decisions is required to ensure that the temporariness of the emergency is a legal question and that the validity of constitutional norms is not undermined by their perpetual suspension. It does this by way of a narrower conception of the rule of law than standard accounts in favour of judicial review of emergency powers in the literature, which tend to be based on the normative value of human rights. In so doing it seeks to refute the fundamental constitutional challenge posed by Carl Schmitt: that all state power cannot be constrained by law.
Unveiling the complex dynamic between State sovereignty and necessity doctrine as historically practiced in international political relations, this book proposes analytical criteria to assess the lawfulness and legitimacy of interpretations of necessity and national emergency clauses in specialized treaty regimes.
How do we maintain core values and rights when governments impose restrictive measures on our lives? Declaring a state of emergency is the best way to protect public health in a pandemic but how do these powers differ from those for national security and economic crises? This book explores how human rights, democracy and the rule of law can be protected during a pandemic and how emergency powers can best be ended once it wanes. Written by an expert on constitutional law and human rights, this accessible book will shape how governments, opposition, courts and society as a whole view future pandemic emergency powers.
